Travelling on the railway in 1830

I wish I could  have rattled along on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway sometime in the 1830s.

But I can't so instead I will offer up the memories of one man who travelled from Manchester to Liverpool during the first decade after it had been built.

This was the remarkable; J.T.Slugg who came to Manchester as a young man and in 1881 published a description of the city of his youth.  He was there at the opening of the railway and recalled that “the morning opened most propitiously as to the weather and at about half past ten I set off with my brother and friend to witness the wonderful sight of a train being moved without a horse.”

But for me it is the comments on the daily running of what was the first passenger railway in the world which are more fascinating.

There were only seven trains a day each way and first and second class passengers had their own trains.  The last first class train left at 5 p.m. and the last second class at 5.30.p.m., but at a time  when the Manchester markets were still a significant factor in the city’s economy “on Tuesday and Saturday, which were then the two principle market days, the last train left at 6 p.m.”

Slugg also seized on the fact that while this was a first the railway still straddled both the past and the future, so the some of the carriages resembled the old stage coaches complete with luggage on the roof with the guard sitting beside it.

Just as every stage coach was designated by some name, so each first class carriage was designated in like manner.  

Amongst the names I remember were King William, Queen Adelaide, Duke of wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Earl Wilton and William Huskinson.”

And like so much of what the railway laid down as not changed over much.  

Steam locomotives more or less resembled the winning design, and carriages as these from the late 1830s testify looked very similar.

Pictures; Traveling the 1830s way, 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson Greater Manchester Science and Industry Museum

*Slugg, J.T., Reminiscences of Manchester, 1881 page 234

Passing the parish church one Sunday in November and remembering Bradshaw's guide

Now I like Ryan’s picture of Eltham Church which got me thinking about how a modern guide book would describe it.

Back in 1861 Bradshaw’s Illustrated Handbook to London and its Environs reported that visitors should
“go and see Eltham Church; not that it is architecturally remarkable, but in the churchyard will be found a tomb to Doggett the comedian, who bequeathed the coat and badge still rowed for every 1st of August by the ‘jolly young watermen of the Thames.”*

Sadly for anyone using that edition and happening on the church a decade and a bit later they would have been disappointed because it no longer existed having been replaced by the one we know today.

Work on the present church began in 1871 and was finished eight years later  just  3 metres north of the old site and occupying a larger area.

At which point I do have to be careful because those with a much greater knowledge than I will point out that the unfinished building was consecrated in 1875.

The spire was added in 1879 when funds became available and s service of thanksgiving for the completion of the building was conducted by Rev. Walter J Sowerby on 24th June 1880 which is the  feast day of St John the Baptist.**

So there you have it ................ three possible dates for the historian with an eye for detail to go for.

In the meantime I will go looking for a later edition to Bradshaw’s guide book to see if they updated the entry and leave you with this earlier photograph of the parish church from the 1860s.

Back then the clock ticked the hours away and it is nice to know that after some time the clock in Ryan's photograph is again offering up the correct time.



Pictures;  Eltham Church, 2015 from the collection of Ryan Ginn and back in  1860,  from The story of Royal Eltham,  R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm,

* Bradshaw’s Illustrated Handbook to London and its Environs, 1861, republished in 2012 by Conway

**Eltham Parish Church,  http://elthamchurch.org.uk/wp/?page_id=2

Marjorie Holmes, 1921-2014, a dear friend and historian of Chorlton

Marjorie with her mother, circa 1929 on the lockups by Chorlton Green

Over the years Marjorie had become a close friend, and because she lived just around the corner we saw each other regularly.

She delighted in hearing the news of my four lads and in return I would listen attentively to her stories of growing up in Chorlton.

For Marjorie really was a Chorlton girl, born here in 1921 and an apart from war service this is where she lived.

A letter from Marjorie

And so she was a fund of stories, pictures and memorabilia which I have plundered over the years.

But there was never anything precious about Marjorie and so as I dug deeper in the history of our township she was always wanting to know more, adding my research to her memories and always there to encourage me “to push on, find out more and don’t forget to tell me.”

More memories

From her I have that vivid memory of a young girl entranced at watching the blacksmith on Beech Road performing his “magic of heating and hammering,” which more than once made her late for school.

Or her memories of the old parish church with its blue ceiling and white star, illuminated in the early morning sunshine.

Jasmine Cottage, painted by Marjorie

Hers were I think some of the last living memories of a building closed in 1940 and demolished in 1949 and which had served our community since it was opened in 1800.

And of course I could go on, but it would be wrong just to present my friend as a living piece of history for she was much more, including an accomplished artist a brilliant conversationalist and someone who was not averse to a risque joke.

In later years she would often refer to me as her toy boy and I will value that as much as I valued her friendship and what I learnt from her about the place we both loved.

So on an upbeat note and with the permission of Bernard here is part of a conversation* she recorded for Chorlton Good Neighbours.**






Pictures; from the collection of Marjorie Holmes

*In conversation with Marjorie Holmes, http://chorltongoodneighbours.org/2011/04/26/marjorie-holmes/

**Chorlton Good Neighbours, http://chorltongoodneighbours.org/

Why Stuff Matters: Objects, Power and the Past ...... on the wireless today

I am a great fan of Radio 4's Start the Week which is one of those talking programmes the BBC excels at and this one was no exception.

Two  Pentax K1000's, 1978

The sleeve notes perfectly set the scene with, "What can the things we create, keep and bury tell us about who we are? 

On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Adam Rutherford explores material culture – the power of objects you can touch – and how they connect us to the past.

Classicist Mary Beard discusses her book Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old, arguing that everyday remnants of antiquity, from bread to paint pots abandoned at Pompeii, still matter. And that Ancient Greece and Rome continue to shape how we see our own world.

Theatre director Greg Doran set himself the task of tracking down the surviving copies of Shakespeare’s First folio, after the death of his husband the actor Antony Sher. He recounts his worldwide quest in Walking Shadow: Love, Loss and Shakespeare, which also reveals the importance of the enduring physical presence of Shakespeare’s work.

Nokia 3310, 2000

Dr Sophia Adams, curator at the British Museum, discusses the extraordinary Melsonby Hoard, the largest collection of Iron Age metalwork ever found in Britain, and what its burnt and buried objects reveal about power, ritual and life before the Roman conquest. The exhibition, Chariots, Treasure and Power: Secrets of the Melsonby Hoard, will go on display at the Yorkshire Museum, York from 15th May 2026.

The Ronson Veraflame, 1957

Producer: Katy Hickman

Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez"

And not wanting to delve too far into the past I chose some objects that mean a lot to me.  

They include my old Pentax K1000 cameras from the age of smelly photography. They were a constant companion from 1978 and performed and survived in the searing heat of summers in Greece, the clammy heat of an August Paris as well as heaps of venues from Manchester, London and plenty of other places.  

To these I have added my own first Nokia 3310 and a Ronson Veraflame which mum used all the time and I thought was the tops of stylish fashion in 1960.

Location; BBC Radio 4

Pictures; my old Pentax K1000's, 1978, my own first Nokia 3310, 20000, a Ronson Veraflame, 1957

*Why Stuff Matters: Objects, Power and the Past, Start of the Week, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002v9nv

Historians of Chorlton ............ Thomas Ellwood

There have been many who have written about the history of Chorlton.

Almost all of them draw on twenty-five articles written in the winter and spring of 1885-86 by Thomas Ellwood.

These were published in weekly instalments in the South Manchester Gazette and reappear as articles in the Wesleyan and Parish magazines throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ellwood in turn drew on an earlier work on the histories of the churches and chapels of south and east Manchester written thirty years earlier as well as contemporary documents.

 But the real strength of his account is that much of it is based on the oral testimonies of some of the oldest inhabitants of the township, people who had had been born at the very beginning of Ellwood’s century and who confidently recorded the customs and people of an even earlier time.

Picture;  from The Manchester City News, Saturday March 4th 1922

Steam fun ……….. London Road ……..

This is another one of my all-time favourites from Eddie Johnson’s book on Manchester Railway Termini.*

Until recently I had not got round to asking for permission to reproduce it, but after a nice conversation with Eddie, here it is.

The caption says, “Happy hours spent train spotting are recalled by Bill Johnson’s superb shot of Coronation Class 4-6-2 No. 46256 Sir William A. Stanier F.R.S with steam issuing on all fronts , including the coal pusher, as she backs down to collect her train………  Popularly known as ‘Duchess’ No ”. 46256 was the penultimate  member of her class, being turned out  from Crewe in 1947 ……..”

There is more, but I will leave it at that, and instead just point out for those who do not remember, or never knew, Piccadilly Railway Station was once called London Road.

Location; London Road, Railway Station, 1959, 

Picture; London Road Railway Station, date unknown, W. Johnson from Manchester Railway Termini

* Manchester Railway Termini, Scenes from the Past: 3 E.M. Johnson, 1987

The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 10 the drainhole cover ..... from Tricia

The challenge is to write a history of Eltham in just 20 objects which are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

And here is Tricia's Contribution to Eltham's Hall of History

"The drainhole cover was situated until 1970 in Eltham Court Yard and was only removed when the road was widened to take the bus lay-by outside Grove Market. 

It bore the following inscription 'Invented by T.C. HAWORTH, Surveyor, Eltham 1874'. 

It appeared more like a safe door than a drainhole cover and needed several men to remove it.

It was presented to The Eltham Society by the Greenwich Borough Council but the question is where is it now?"

Contributor; Tricia Lesley


Pricture; Court Yard, 1970, Mr. F Shepherd (beared) then Chairman of the Eltham Society recieves the Haworth drainhole cover from Greenwich Council officials, Photo; Kentish Independent supplied by Tricia Lesley